It will be slightly overweight but its perfect for my need. I do a lot of multitasking. Also getting Balkin Laptop cooler so I can use lappy in bed

You should consider upgrading Video card to 1GB, it will cost ~ Rs1000/- more, but produces amazing results.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghpk

not really a acer fan, but what made you decide on Acer as in that pricing you had option of Dell or compaq too

anything more than 3GB of RAM is useless unless you use a 64bit OS.

Yes, I have installed Win7Pro 64 bit to utilize 4 GB RAM. Dell has good models, but it is marginally higher priced (3K more). Compaq has only few models in i3/i5 processors in the market. They still market C2D very much...

Which laptop brand is the most reliable in India? I have shortlisted Dell and Toshiba as they seem to be reliable according to reviews.

I have avoided Compaq as they seem to conk off more frequently than Dells in my office. What do you think?
Acer - not inclined to it somehow, is it reliable?
MSI/Gateway/other lesser known brands - not sure about the service/repair scenario, heard MSI service is good though.
Sony - too expensive (although there are a couple of cheaper models), bloatware a problem?
Lenovo - heard that the basic model's screen is not all that great.

Anyway, all that I need is a decent laptop under 30k, lower the better. Must have atleast 2 GB RAM, processor can be dual-core, 6-cell battery and should be reliable. Preferably 15 inch screen. I wanted to get a netbook for 20k but thought Ill put in a bit more for a notebook.

It will be slightly overweight but its perfect for my need. I do a lot of multitasking. Also getting Balkin Laptop cooler so I can use lappy in bed

Congrats you made a good choice.
before placing the order, do call dell call center, they are mostly running some promo scheme which can save you some money for sure.
if possible and have time subscribe to their e-mail promotional offer, you'll get new deals every few days.

Also i've seen ordering it online gets you latest hardware configs which may not have touched the local retailers yet.

Bought a sony vaio vpceb16FG, i3-330, 4 gb dd3 Ram, 500 gb 5400 rpm hard disk, Full HD 15.6 screen for 48,500 rs in Mumbai. Got a Vaio carrycase along with it. I bought the glossy coconut white color. Its been only a day of usage, but its been good till now. It came with win 7 premium 64 bit.

Late 2006 - 17in ASUS laptop, Intel Centrino Mobile 2.4Ghz, 2GB Ram, 160GB HDD, and the usuals. Raped it for 4 years and it still kicks a$$. Bought it from the US and the size is huge!

2009 - Bought Sony Viao CS17 Shiney Red for my wife. 14" screen, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 320GB, NVIDYA GeForce 9600 inbuilt and the usuals. Its a good girl laptop. After a year + of usage, the only complaint is the fan gets stuck due to dust or for some other reason, and the laptop fails to boot. Get it checked with the center, and its back up and running.

2010 - HP TouchSmart TM2 tablet - had enough with the iPad hype, just bought my self a real tablet with touchscreen. 12" multi touch screen, Intel 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 (upgradeable to 8GB), 512MB ATI RAdeon Graphics + GPU, 500GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium, Pressure Sensitive Stylus included, Webcam, 4x USB, HDMI out, Ext Lightscribe DVD writer. Also bought an ex Sony BluRay player and the tablet plays it ultra smoothly! I use the HDMI out to connect it to my TV and works great! And if I lack anything with the tablet, I just remote desktop to my PC and voila...everything else is on there!

I am also looking for a portable laptop/netbook. Will be used only at home. 95% of usage will be for browsing. What's the cheapest one I can find?

Also, I already have a licensed copy of Windows XP - do any of the vendors sell a laptop without an OS or with just FreeDOS or something like that, so that I can install my copy of XP on it?

Be careful with the drivers. Most laptops these days do *not* officially support XP. Hence getting XP working with all your hardware (e.g. inbuilt webcam etc) optimally, might be a challenge for a non-techie. Just google if someone already has got XP installed on the model of your choice (or better still, if the vendor allows you to download drivers for XP from their website).
I believe HP India and Lenovo do sell laptops with FreeDOS or Linux.